The Stuff We Can’t (Or Won’t) Live Without

Somewhere deep in the hazy recesses of my memory I recall a school assignment, probably in 7^th or 8^th grade, that required students to share certain personal aspects of their lives. Part of the assignment included naming our favorite possession.

I distinctly remember naming my tennis racquet – a wooden Wilson Jack Kramer autograph model. It was a popular racquet in the 1970s, and my stick of choice during the early days of what would become a lifelong love affair with tennis.

This, of course, was in the Dark Ages – pre-laptops, pre-smartphones, pre-digital revolution. Back then, most students probably named items that had nothing to do with electronics or even electricity. A bicycle. A piece of clothing. A basketball. A surfboard  (well, maybe not in our part of the country).

I’m pretty damn sure that few if any of those items would rank No. 1 among the current generation of youngsters – or the preceding generation, either. We have been living in the digital age for three-plus decades. The internet has changed the world so completely that it’s hard to remember what life was like before it.

Most people depend on smartphones and laptops to make it through the day. So you have to believe those devices rank pretty high up on the scale of inanimate objects.

Recently, our family had another in a regular series of “name something” conversations. In this one, the focus was on naming the one inanimate object you would keep if you could only keep one.

Each of us named either a smartphone or a laptop. The only area of doubt is whether I named a laptop or smartphone, because I’m 99% sure the other three family members named their smartphones. The only reason I might have named a laptop is because I need it for work. But maybe I went with the smartphone, because theoretically I could do just about all of my work on that.

Smartphones have become an extension of our bodies anymore. We use them for everything – to communicate, shop, work, write, read, order food, book appointments, make reservations, monitor our health, play games, create art, consume art, listen to music, scan the news, handle personal finances, transfer money, scam people, avoid scammers, conduct business, hold virtual meetings, attend virtual parties, watch sports, watch movies, watch streaming shows, tune into podcasts, dive into social media, do schoolwork, apply to college, apply for government benefits – Every. Damn. Thing. On. God’s. Green. Earth.

Whether we want to admit it or not, much of the world’s population would be paralyzed without that little handheld gadget.

Is this a positive trend? Oh, I don’t know.

What I do know with 100 percent certainty is that in the space of a couple of generations, we have become a species that can’t live without the very technology that we lived without for thousands of years.

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In a never-ending quest to feed my bottomless curiosity, I decided to find out which possessions the world’s population holds most dear. And in true 2025 fashion, I asked AI – specifically, ChatGPT.

Why question was this: What are non-essential items people cannot live without?

ChatGPT told me it was a “fun (and revealing!) question.” Yaaayyy me!

It then went on to explain that “non-essential items people cannot live without usually means things that aren’t necessary for survival (like food, water, or shelter), but have become emotionally, socially, or practically indispensable in modern life.”

True enough.

ChatGPT broke things down by category, and led the list with (of course) tech & digital items. Here were items listed in this category:

• Smartphones
• Internet/Wi-Fi
• Streaming services
• Social media apps
• Streaming services

ChatGPT also listed items in other categories, such as the following:

• Comfort & convenience: coffee/tea, takeout food, reusable water bottles, air conditioning/heating, comfy clothes/loungewear, smart home devices, credit cards
• Lifestyle & self-expression: makeup/grooming products, personal fragrance, fashion items, headphones/earbuds
• Mental & emotional well-being: journals/books/planners, pets* (?), hobby items (games, fitness gear, etc.), plants* (?), décor

(*Brief interlude: Pets and plants are not “things.” When AI finally takes over the world, keep that in mind. Also, why are food and beverages included when ChatGPT previously said these lists should not include necessities we need to survive? Huh? WHY????)

ChatGPT didn’t rank the above items in any particular order. My hunch is that smartphones would rank way, way above grooming products, water bottles or décor for the vast majority of the earth’s humans.

I also asked ChatGPT to break things down by generation. Here are the top three items listed for each generation:

• Gen Z: smartphone, social media apps, earbuds/airpods
• Millennials: smartphone, streaming subscriptions, coffee
• Gen X: cars, laptops/wi-fi, streaming/cable TV
• Boomers: television, cars, landline/mobile phones
• Silent generation (essentially, pre-boomers): TV/radio, landline phone, photo albums/printed photos

Those are interesting lists, if not terribly surprising. Maybe the only surprise is that Gen Xers rank cars at the top. But since I’m not a Gen Xer, what do I know?

Here’s the interesting thing: In the space of five generations, we have gone from treating print photos as prized possessions to leaning heavily into social media apps.

Here’s a fun question: Who has more of what? Gen Zers with print photos? Or 90-year-olds with social media apps?

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The main purpose of this blog – which I have taken my sweetass time getting around to – is to chronicle the things I value the most.

Following is a list of the five things I would put at the top, ranked from uno to cinq. These are “non-essential” items, meaning they are not necessarily needed to eat, drink, sleep, or heal wounds. That’s why you won’t find any cooking gear or medicine on here.

One quick note: I love books and music with a passion, and cannot imagine my life without them. But you won’t find physical books on this list, or CDs or record albums – even though I have a ton of each.

The reason? Because you can download all of those things onto a smartphone or laptop. I might be an OG, but I’m also practical.

Now to the list….

1. Smartphone

The main and possibly only reason a smartphone ranks No. 1 is that it gives me instant access to my immediate family. My iPhone lets me find out where my loved ones are at any given time, and vice versa. I can contact them, and vice versa. If not for that, I’m not sure it would be on this list.

2. Bicycle

I’ve blogged about my passion for bicycles. I cycle pretty much every day, weather permitting.  I currently own two bikes – a Jamis city hybrid I bought two decades ago in Manhattan, and a Cannondale I bought here in Jersey a couple years ago. The Jamis has traveled with me from NYC to North Carolina, then over to London, and now here in Joisey. I cannot imagine my life without a bicycle.

Which leads to the next item on the list……

3. Car

Normally, I might put a car over a bike simply for practical reasons. A motor vehicle is pretty much a necessity for certain people in certain parts of the world.

But: We lived five-and-a-half years in London with no car. We learned to get by on subways, trains, planes, rideshare services and taxis. I love to drive (as I’ve blogged about before), but I know we can survive without a car if we absolutely have to. I’m not sure I could survive without a bike in my life.

BTW, the car pictured in the collage above is a 1968 Pontiac Firebird, with a 400-cid V-8 engine. A beautiful machine. It was the first car I ever drove, and shared it with my two older siblings. Our parents bought it, used, for probably a couple hundred bucks.

4. Laptop

This is my lifeline to making money, no matter where I am, or what time of day. So yeah, it’s pretty important. My machine of choice these days is an Acer Aspire – cheap, functional, and easily replaceable. Maybe I could do all my work on a smartphone, I don’t know. But I have a feeling that doing so would lead to a nervous breakdown and millions of deaths.

5. Tennis Racquet

And so we come full circle – back to the tennis racquet. And yes, it still ranks really high among my list of possessions. But it’s no longer Top Dog. I guess this is what happens when you jump from age 13 to age Older Than I Want To Think About.

I have mainly (but not exclusively) played with Wilson racquets since I became a regular tennis player around the age of 12. These included a Federer model that my wife bought me for Christmas maybe 15-16 years ago.

I finally got a new racquet this year – a Head Speed Pro I bought at a local tennis shop for about $100, which is half of what I would have spent elsewhere. I love this racquet. It’s lightweight and has a large sweet spot that allows me to swing freely and zing winners from all angles. I hit every day against a tennis net in the back driveway.

Demographically (if not physically or mentally) I’m approaching senior citizen status. But I will always cherish my tennis racquet.